Trilateral summit of S. Korea, US, Japan to strengthen global peace, stability: Blinken

The upcoming trilateral summit between South Korea, Japan and the United States will help strengthen their joint efforts to promote peace and stability not only in the region but around the world, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday.

The top US diplomat also noted that the countries will likely hold regular meetings down the road.

"This summit comes at a moment when our region and the world are being tested by geopolitical competition, by climate crisis, by Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, by nuclear provocations," he told a press briefing.

"Our heightened engagement is part of our broader efforts to revitalize, to strengthen, to knit together our alliances and partnerships, and, in this case, to help realize a shared vision of an Indo-Pacific that is free and open, prosperous, secure, resilient and connected," added Blinken.

The White House said earlier that President Joe Biden will host South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida at Camp David on Friday.

Blinken noted the summit will be the first-ever "standalone" trilateral summit of the countries, while Yoon and Kishida will also be the first foreign leaders to visit the US presidential retreat since 2015.

"Japan and South Korea are core allies, not just in the region but around the world," Blinken said. "Strengthening our trilateral cooperation is critical to delivering for our people, for the region and for the world."

The trilateral summit will cover a wide range of issues, "including security questions, including economic security questions, but also including things like coordination on development aid, on humanitarian assistance, on shaping the use of emerging technologies, greater people-to-people exchanges," the secretary said.

To this end, the leaders are well expected to agree to holding regular three-way meetings in the future, according to Blinken.

"On the trilateral cooperation, I think what you can expect to see coming out of this summit is a collaboration on a trilateral basis that is further institutionalized in a variety of ways to include regular meetings that are at a variety of levels, at senior levels in our governments," he told the press briefing.

Blinken also offered condolences to the South Korean president for the loss of his father on Tuesday.

"I want to take this moment before saying anything else to extend the deepest condolences of the United States to President Yoon on the passing of his father. He was by all accounts a remarkable scholar and, among other things, a strong proponent of relations between the ROK and Japan," he said, referring to South Korea by its official name, the Republic of Korea. (Yonhap)